Bill Aims To Keep Twa From Avoiding Lawsuit

Airline, Boeing Say Flight 800 Damages Limited By Old Law

July 10, 1997|By Merrill Goozner, Tribune Staff Writer.

NEW YORK — William Rogers is not the kind of man who rushes into court when tragedy strikes, as it did a year ago when the crash of TWA Flight 800 killed his only child, 17-year-old Kimberly. He didn't join a lawsuit filed in October on behalf of 65 families who lost loved ones in the crash, which killed 230 people. The self-described house husband from Montoursville, Pa., concentrated instead on consoling himself and his pharmacist wife, and struggled with the question of whether, at 44, to have another baby. But he's hopping mad now. Last week, Trans World Airlines Inc. and Boeing Co., manufacturer of the 747, asked the U.S. District Court in New York to dismiss the suit. The companies argued that since the victims of Flight 800 died more than three miles offshore, their families must seek compensation under the relatively obscure Death on the High Seas Act. That law was passed in 1920 to provide income for the widows and orphans of merchant seamen lost at sea. The law, which the Supreme Court in 1983 ruled applied to all airline crashes at sea, limits compensation to lost income and precludes recovery for the lost companionship, pain and suffering and punitive damages often associated with lawsuits over catastrophic but preventable accidents. In the case of the 16 teenagers from Montoursville who were going on their first overseas adventure, lost family income would amount to next to nothing. "Our emotions have been ground into gravel and now they want to ground them into pulp," said Rogers. "Our children are everything to us. And they're saying they're worthless. It's like being punched over and over." Rogers will take his demand for changes in the law to Capitol Hill on Thursday when he testifies before the aviation subcommittee of the House Infrastructure and Transportation Committee. Legislation sponsored by Rep. Joseph McDade (R-Pa.), who represents a central Pennsylvania district, would amend the Death on the High Seas Act to allow families victimized by air crashes at sea to seek compensation for injuries or death under state laws. The bill already has garnered 38 co-sponsors and is moving toward quick approval in the full committee. The legislation has been written to cover air disasters occurring after Jan. 1, 1995.

FOR THE RECORD - Additional material published July 11, 1997: Corrections and clarifications. A story Thursday gave the wrong date for a Supreme Court decision on air crashes at sea. The ruling was in January 1996. The Tribune regrets the error.

The Warsaw Convention, a separate treaty covering international air travel, puts a $75,000 limit on the compensation available to victims of crashes. That limit is waived when plaintiffs can prove that either the airline or the manufacturer engaged in willful misconduct before the crash. The first lawsuit related to the crash of Flight 800 filed Oct. 21 asserts exactly that. According to the suit, the 26-year-old aircraft had logged 101,000 flight hours, or 41,000 more than its design life. Shortly after takeoff July 17, it suffered "a mechanical, structural and/or electrical failure," which "caused a limited explosion of the center fuel cell of the aircraft, followed by chain-reaction structural failures and fires, causing the plane to break up in midair." The suit's theory conforms with what has become the National Transportation Safety Board's leading explanation for the cause of the crash, an explosion of uncertain origin in the center fuel tank. NTSB Chairman James Hall also is scheduled to testify Thursday before the aviation subcommittee.

"We have no physical evidence that this was a bomb or missile," said a spokeswoman for the NTSB. "We still have not ruled out that a small explosive on the center fuel tank or a missile fragment (may have caused it to explode)." However, FBI metallurgists have been unable to find any indication that would suggest something pierced the tank from the outside before it exploded. FBI Assistant Director James Kallstrom said last week that he expects the bureau to wind down its criminal investigation within the next three months.